Flashman in the Peninsula

by Robert Brightwell

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious. We are burning the town so that it will be of no use to the enemy. I have ordered all towns and villages here cleared of food. Did you come through any on your way back?’

  ‘Yes, there is a village a few miles down the valley. I know that it does not have a shred of food in it as I was starving when I reached it.’ The officers with Wellington snickered in amusement at the thought of a British gentleman scavenging for food. Most of them had their own country estates and had never been hungry in their lives. ‘I managed to trap some rabbits and roasted them for breakfast,’ I explained airily to quieten them.

  Wellington, who hunted regularly with his pack of hounds, gave Boney a shrewd glance, but before he could say anything a tall staff officer I had not seen before sneered, ‘Poaching is not exactly an honourable skill.’

  ‘It is better than starving, Grant,’ said Wellington sharply. ‘Now, Flashman, we hear some of the French army is coming down the valley behind you. Did you see any of it? Is it their main force?’

  ‘I have seen it and it is their main force.’ Then, knowing that it would put the staff officers firmly in their place, I reached into my pocket and pulled out Magda’s letter. ‘I have made a note of most of the numbers of the infantry regiments and listed cavalry and artillery units that I saw, on the margins of this letter.’

  Wellington was not an easy man to impress, but he looked genuinely stunned at the quality of my information. ‘Good grief, you have done an excellent job Flashman. I had heard Marshal Junot was with Massena, but some of these regiments are in Ney’s command. Is he with the main force?’

  ‘Yes, he was commanding the advance guard. Massena is apparently occupied with a new mistress.’

  ‘You cannot possibly know all of this,’ exploded the tall officer called Grant. ‘It is just gossip you have heard from the partisans. There is no way that you can make out regimental numbers on eagles and shakoes with a glass from the surrounding hills.’

  ‘Grant,’ replied Wellington irritably. ‘Captain Flashman is very experienced in getting information for me on my enemies…’

  ‘No, Captain Grant is quite right,’ I interrupted, for now I saw an opportunity to enhance my reputation further. Having risked life and limb to get this information I might as well earn credit for it. ‘You cannot read regimental numbers from the hillsides.’ I reached into my saddlebag and pulled out the blue uniform coat before continuing. ‘Which is why I acquired this and have spent the last two days riding with the French. I was able to see their regimental numbers because I was talking to the men wearing them.’ Looking pointedly at Grant I added, ‘I know Ney commands the advance guard because I saluted him as he rode past me.’

  ‘Well done Flash,’ said one of the other staff officers, and there were other cries of congratulation from the staff while Grant continued to look pompously stuffed.

  ‘I admit I did not look through Massena’s bedroom keyhole, so what he is doing with his mistress is gossip, but from the French army, not the partisans.’

  ‘From what we hear of you, Flash,’ chortled one of the staff officers, ‘you would have stolen his mistress as well as a uniform if you had got close enough.’ Most of the staff guffawed at that, leaving me to wonder what rumours about me were circulating.

  ‘I take it you acquired your disguise from a Mr Zeminski?’ enquired a smiling Wellington, holding up the letter.

  ‘But sir, this is spying,’ persisted Grant to Wellington. ‘It is dishonourable behaviour, which is why both we and the French shoot those found disguised in our uniforms. How can you now condone this activity amongst one of your own officers?’

  Several of the more experienced hands looked pityingly at the newcomer Grant before Wellington responded. ‘Because Captain Flashman knows the risks he is taking. He is a brave man who saved my army from encirclement at Talavera and also provided me with great service as a spy in India. He knows he risks being shot, he was nearly executed by rockets in India. But he does his duty to bring me information nevertheless.’

  ‘Actually I was nearly shot this time,’ I added, and held up the lancer’s helmet. ‘I was wearing this when it was hit by a musket ball as I rode away from the French through a night time partisan ambush.’ There were more cries of admiration at that, and then they wanted to know how I had got the lancer’s uniform in the first place. I gave a creditable story about how I had evaded an ambush by a squadron of lancers and killed one in the process, and felt well pleased with myself. If salacious stories of my time in the cathedral with Agustina were circulating amongst the staff, then accounts of me riding amongst the French would add a more martial air to my reputation.

  The last of the soldiers who had been firing the town were forming up to march along the westerly road and the staff now also headed in that direction. Wellington called me over to ride with him, leaving the other staff officers to follow on behind.

  ‘Take no notice of Grant,’ he told me as we set off down the road. ‘He is new and an inexperienced fellow, few people hold their honour more dearly than an impoverished Scotsman. You have done well, but of course I have come to expect that.’

  ‘What happens next?’ I asked him. ‘You know the French will try to push us into the sea and they have the men to do it. My cousin told me that you have a plan. Will you tell me what it is?’ I thought having done him such a service he could not refuse me, but I was wrong.

  ‘She really did not tell you what it was?’ he asked, looking at me. ‘I can see from your face she did not,’ he continued. ‘I will personally show you the plan as you partly gave me the idea for it, but not yet. No, if the French are coming down the valley as you say, then we will first make a stand on the Busaco ridge.’

  I knew Busaco; it was a tall escarpment across the road between here and Lisbon. It was several miles long and the French would certainly prefer to go over it than around it, but if we did stop them climbing over then they could easily outflank us. ‘Won’t the French simply go around us?’

  ‘Eventually, yes. But I need a victory and I can have one at Busaco. The army has not fought for a year and it wants a battle. The politicians are also getting impatient for a return on the supplies and money they are sending the army.’

  ‘But won’t your plan give you a victory?’ I asked, puzzled.

  Wellington laughed. ‘You will see Thomas, you will see,’ he called, before spurring his horse onwards to ride alone. I went back to join the staff. While Grant ignored me, most of the rest were old friends. I told them what Wellington had told me and they were delighted about the prospect of a fight, but most were equally mystified as to what Wellington’s plan was.

  Chapter 24

  Just over a week later I stood on the crest of the hill at Busaco. It was dawn on the twenty-seventh of September and already Wellington’s arrangements for the battle had gone wrong. We had waited nearly a week for the French army to arrive as it had originally camped eight miles away, showing no intention of going further. During the time we were waiting, Wellington had built a road just behind the ridge so that he could quickly move his forces up and down it to meet any French threat, without the French being able to see where his forces stood. It was to be a classic Wellington defensive battle, the British army on the reverse slope of a hill safe from enemy artillery, only appearing as tired French columns reached the crest. What no one had foreseen was a thick fog which came up, near to the top of the crest. It completely hid the valley from us, but more importantly it would hide the French attacks until they were nearly upon the British line.

  There are occasions when you can have too much planning. Countless times I have seen battles won on spur of the moment strategy, but for this engagement Wellington had calculated things to the last detail. Now the weather had made all the preparation obsolete. Everyone was feeling nervous. During the last week we had speculated on the French delay. Remembering the gossip of the French infantry, I had suggested that Massena’s energetic mistress, Madame X
, was keeping him occupied. This was laughed off as wicked speculation, but years later I discussed the battle with Ney and it turned out I was correct. He told me how he had been forced to shout the results of reconnaissance rides through the marshal’s bedroom door. But all good things come to an end, and the exhausted Massena finally hauled himself from his bed. With his mistress riding alongside dressed as an aide de camp, he turned his attention to what were for him less strenuous activities, making war instead of making love.

  We had seen the French army move to the plain in front of the Busaco ridge the previous day. Sixty-five thousand men build a lot of camp fires, and they had flickered during the night like the stars above them, until the morning mist had blotted them out. In contrast, Wellington had forbidden our army to light any fires that night, as he did not want the glow to give away our disposition behind the ridge. This explained why at dawn I was to be found pacing the crest, freezing cold with a cloak wrapped tightly around me.

  ‘They are certainly busy down there,’ mused Campbell who walked alongside me. We listened to the sound of bugles, trumpets and drums that the French were using to call their men to order, and the distant ‘tramp, tramp,’ of marching men.

  ‘We can only hope that the fog is disrupting their attack as much as it is forestalling our defence,’ I muttered grumpily. ‘I am more worried that they might try and go around us while we cannot see them.’

  ‘They won’t do that,’ said Campbell, confidently.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they are here to destroy our army. We are standing to give them battle and it will be a challenge their generals will be too proud to ignore. Their force is nearly three times the size of the British army here, and they discount the Portuguese, given their experience of the Spanish. They are not going to go round us when they think they have every chance of going through us and destroying our army.’

  ‘Well, you are a ray of sunshine,’ I grumbled. He was right though, the allied army was just fifty thousand. Half of those were British who had not fought since Talavera, and for many of those it had been their first battle. The rest were completely unproven Portuguese, whom the British had spent the last year training. Nobody was sure if they would stand. Meanwhile nearly every one of the sixty-five thousand men opposite were Bonaparte’s veterans of countless campaigns and, as I had seen for myself, as tough as teak.

  We fell silent as Wellington rode slowly towards us along the ridge with a group of his staff officers. He was complaining that he had been obliged to send a drunken commanding officer to the rear and I instinctively touched my brandy flask before remembering it was empty.

  ‘Morning, gentlemen,’ he snapped curtly to us as he moved on, and we touched our hats in reply. General Picton was riding alongside Wellington in what seemed to be a greatcoat over a night shirt with his night cap still on his head.

  Captain Grant was among the other staff officers, and as he saw me he hung back a little so that he could speak out of earshot of Wellington. ‘It is good to see you fighting in your own uniform Captain Flashman.’

  I returned this greeting with an icy glare. If he thought he was going to provoke an intemperate remark that could lead to a duel he could think again. I had made enquiries and found out that he was a decent shot and swordsman. ‘This must be your first battle, Grant. When you have been in as many as me you can give me advice.’

  ‘It is not my first battle, I was on the Ostend raid in ninety eight,’ he retorted primly.

  I turned to Campbell. ‘Ostend Raid? I was still at school then, was it a big battle?’ I was pretty sure it wasn’t or I would have heard of it.

  ‘If I remember rightly,’Campbell’s brow creased in concentration as he tried to recall the details, ‘a storm blew up trapping the raiding party on shore and they were all captured.’

  ‘We destroyed part of Bonaparte’s invasion fleet,’ said Grant hotly

  ’Burning a few barges is not much to show for at least twelve years in the army,’ Campbell said to me before gesturing over his shoulder at Grant. ’He must have friends in Horseguards to keep him in comfortable billets. His regiment has recently come from Madeira.’

  We both turned to a furious Grant as I confirmed happily, ‘So apart from facing angry Madeiran fisherwomen this is your first proper battle then?’

  ‘Cork brained fools,’ he snarled before spurring his horse.

  But he was not out of earshot before a laughing Campbell had added, ‘I don’t know, Flash, I hear those fisherwomen can put up a hell of a fight.’

  The levity was gone a moment later when we heard a crackle of musket and rifle fire from the bottom of the forward slope. Our skirmishers, light companies and riflemen had been sent down the hill a while ago to slow the enemy advance, and now this noise indicated that they had made contact with the enemy.

  ‘If only we could see what was happening down there,’ said Campbell, staring into the thick fog. I listened for the direction of the shooting, but it seemed to come along the full width of the front and was steadily growing in ferocity. Campbell paced the ground, sniffing the air as though he could smell the French. He reminded me of Boney who seemed to have abandoned me the previous day. We were walking along the part of the ridge occupied by the Connaught Rangers and they had greeted Boney as though he was an old friend. I remembered that Byron had told me he had bought Boney from a Connaught man and the hound seemed to think he had returned home. The last I had seen of him, he was disappearing off with a soldier, who from his girth, was probably a cook.

  I would not have been able to have him up on the ridge with me anyway. Wellington had forbidden any dogs up on the crest. Some thought it was to stop Avery’s Brunhilde savaging any of our own side, but Wellington’s excuse was that their barking warned the French where the British were standing. While Wellington wanted the French ignorant of our positions the fog had balanced the situation, neither side could see the other. I missed having the dog with me. Unlike Campbell, he would have been able to smell the approaching French.

  I consoled myself with the thought that with the fog the French artillery were not wasting shot on the ridge, and considered what I would do when the French did attack. It was no accident that we were standing amongst Picton’s division. He might be eccentric, but his men were more frightened of him than of the French, so they would stand and fight to the last. There had been some scandal a few years ago when Picton was accused of torturing some mulatto girl while a governor in the Caribbean. I had seen a drawing of the scene in one of the more scandalous illustrated news sheets during the trial. A beautiful half-naked girl hanging by her arms with Picton standing angrily over her. If she was half as beautiful as the drawing implied, then torture should have been the last thing on his mind.

  The general was soon back from his inspection with Wellington, still wearing his ridiculous nightcap, not that anyone would dare laugh at him. He prowled around his men ensuring that all were ready to face the expected assault. Despite the disparity in numbers I was strangely confident. The most frightening thing at Talavera had been the guns, and here they were silent. I remembered the French columns advancing up the slope; we had beaten them back then and the slope was much steeper this time. The French were bound to be tired and disordered when they approached the summit. I thought that when they did finally appear, Campbell and I would go and stand behind the long lines of infantry out of their line of fire. We could watch the destruction of the columns and if there was a charge then the fog would at least cover my less than enthusiastic participation.

  Looking around, I edged us over to stand in front of the Connaught Rangers, some of the wildest soldiers in the army. Most of them only understood enough English to get them through a parade, for the rest of the time they spoke Gaelic. If there was one regiment that loved to scrap it was the Rangers. When they were released to a charge they were only likely to stop when they reached wine or women and then there would be no moving them. Those are the boys I want in front of me, I
thought. I could hear their muted murmuring in Gaelic as we stood near them and it reminded me of the Highlanders I had briefly commanded in India. I reached down and touched the gold sword, a reminder of those days, and then gripped the hilt as through the fog I heard the first distant shout of ‘vive l'empereur.’

  For a minute or two we heard nothing more, but then on the slight breeze we heard the distant thud, thud of French drums marking the time as the columns moved forward. Soon we could hear a faint crunching sound along with the drum beat and knew that tens of thousands of boots were moving towards us. While we could not see them, I could easily picture in my imagination the huge columns of men dressed in blue that were now marching up the bottom of the slope towards us. The few guns that we had placed on the ridge now crashed out, aiming blindly down the hill at the approaching men.

  ‘It sound like there is a lot of them,’ shouted Campbell over the noise of the gunfire. He was right; I could hear drums beating all along our front including some that seemed to come from directly below.

  ‘How big do you think those columns are?’ I asked, edging back slightly from the crest.

  ‘Don’t just stand there,’ barked a voice from behind us. I turned and found myself staring into a pair of cold, flinty blue eyes under a nightcap. ‘Get down that hill and help me get the light companies in,’ ordered Picton. With that he walked past us down the hill, his coat still flapping to show his nightshirt, roaring for the officers of his light companies.

  ‘Come on, Flash,’ called Campbell with a grin. ‘What a lark, eh?’ and with that he followed Picton down the ridge, leaving me little choice but to follow.

  As you can imagine, I did not go far. It made no sense to go into the fog, which formed a layer fifty yards below the crest. Our role was to rally the light companies – for that we needed to be seen. ‘Light companies to the ridge,’ Campbell and I bellowed at the top of our voices. Initially there was still a crackle of fire as our skirmishers attacked the approaching column, but gradually this died away and then in ones and twos, soldiers in red emerged from the gloom below. ‘Form up over the ridge,’ we shouted as they appeared. I knew that sound travelled further in fog, but the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up as we waited on that hillside. The remorseless thump, thump of the drums and the march of feet was getting louder. I could hear shouts as rocks were dislodged on the hillside below, and scuffling as men moved around larger obstructions. It seemed as if at any moment the blue coated men would emerge from the fog below us.